Gimme A Smile!
by Ghaskan
Summary: Polar Bear and Grizzly share a precious moment during their High School days. Oneshot. Written in 2013.


A timid winter sun bathed a stern school building – a heavy gray landmark inhabited by a multitude of students.

Inside one of the classrooms, next to a window, sat one of the two I will tell you about. His elbow, covered by fur, laid on the table right in front of him, while his head, topped by a worn-out school uniform hat, tilted to the side, resting on his pawn.

"Let me see the homework," he whispered.

The second person of this tale, who had been carefully writing down notes, looked to the first. He blinked his black eyes twice before asking, "Grizzly, didn't you do your homework again?"

Grizzly's brown eyebrows - as brown as the rest of his fur which covered his growing bear persona - furrowed deeply.

"Of course I didn't! Why else would I be asking?!" he snapped.

The teacher, a fierce jaguar dashingly dressed in an office suit, twitched his sharp ears and looked in the direction of the pair. More concretely, he bore his feline eyes into Grizzly, who was blushing out of embarrassment. Soon enough, the whole class was looking at the brown bear.

"What didn't you do, Grizzly?" asked the teacher.

"I…uh…" Grizzly stuttered while bowing his head down and tipping the hat forward to conceal his face.

"I'm sorry teacher, we were just talking about the pork I asked Grizzly to cook," said the second bear, sounding as pure as the white of his body.

The teacher crossed his arms across his chest before speaking again.

"Pork? What do you mean, Polar Bear?"

Suddenly, the white bear reached for his black school uniform's pocket and retrieved a cylindrical object made of bark, "Pork?"

The teacher's tail swung.

"That's a cork!" he exclaimed.

With lightning speed, Polar bear disposed of the cork and held a scribbled page up in the air.

"That's homework!" the teacher bellowed with a snarl, "Wait…! I completely forgot about homework. Grizzly, can you can come correct it on the blackboard?"

"Yes sir!" Grizzly gasped and got up from his chair. As he walked by Polar bear, he sighed, "And there I thought you had saved my ass, Polar Bear…"

Polar bear smiled, "Not as long as you keep using bad words".

"Aw, man, I thought the teacher would kill me," Grizzly confessed.

Now the two friends were sitting on the school's rooftop. They were both wolfing down pork sandwiches that Polar Bear had offered to buy to compensate his friend. Those sandwiches were usually hard to come by in the school's canteen, since they were very popular, but Grizzly's presence had mysteriously reduced the number of competitors.

"You did fine with Red Panda's help. You should thank him," said Polar Bear between bites.

"True... but why didn't you give me YOUR papers?! You were the one to star all this, Polar Bear!"

"See, you need to yell less. You scared our visitor"

Polar Bear pointed to the rooftop's opened door with one of his thick nails; behind it stood a frightened young emu. Grizzly blinked, and the emu turned around and trotted away.

"Seriously... I'm not that big!" the brown bear complained, "You are bigger than me, even!"

"That's true," Polar Bear agreed, "but I think what makes you scary is your angry face"

Grizzly finished his sandwich with a loud 'gulp' and stood up.

"You think so?" he asked.

"Yeah. Try smiling more!"

Grizzly cleared his throat and stretched his lips widely, proceeding to curl up their tips slightly. With his eyes closed, what he was making was more of a poker face than a smile. After a short while, the bear couldn't keep his lips shut anymore and the smile opened up, revealing his sharp teeth.

"Oh my!" Polar Bear exclaimed with an overly dramatic shocked expression stamped on his face, "What a predatory grin!"

The joke fell flat. Grizzly frowned, but this time he was not angry – a cloud of sadness hovered over him instead.

"And I still thought I could approach **her**," the brown bear lamented.

After he said that, someone patted his back. It was Polar Bear.

"Your smile might be terri- need practice, but we are still friends, right?"

Grizzly did not reply. He grunted, and then nodded to his childhood buddy, beaming. He was sure that Polar Bear would always be there for him, no matter what.


End file.
